Round Up, by David Edward Kucera
The Rider
by Priscilla Turner Spada
“Looking back,”
his mother said,
“as a boy,
he liked to ride,
which wasn't often;
we had no horse.
He rode his cousin’s
once in a while.”
There is a photo
from long ago
of him at six
with a huge grin,
dressed in chaps
and Western hat,
looking sweet
and pleased as punch.
In Oklahoma,
it was a dream
of most young boys
to grow up and
be like their heroes,
those rugged cowpokes
who’d ride the range
loose and free;
no cares or woes,
just cowboy chores,
wrangling horses
on the plains.
Just before
he went away–
only a teen
when duty called–
he gave his mother
the Coke he drank,
stepped on a train
and off to war.
Home on the range,
his dreamed-of fate,
was not to be;
his life cut short
by destiny.
When his mom
would later see
a young rider
like this wrangler,
she would pray
that in God’s plan
her son could be
riding in heaven
high and free.
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